Africa-Press – Namibia. FORMER police commissioner Elisa Haulyodjamba (74) has been left stranded after fishing company Gendor Fishing, in which he held a 23% stake, allegedly disappeared without paying his dividends.
Haulyodjamba says he joined the company in 1999. He says he bought a share for N$7 000 that year, but never received his dividends 22 years down the line.
Haulyodjamba says before he bought his share, he was told by the company’s chairperson, Paulus Iilonga, that buying shares in the company would help keep Swapo afloat.
“I was informed that the company is owned by Swapo through Kalahari Holdings. Paulus [Iilonga] gave me the account number in which I deposited the money, and I got an acknowledgement. I am told the company is now operating under a different name. I want my shares. They must pay. What happened to my money?” he says.
He says he cannot ask Iilonga only, “because he was just a shareholder like me”. Gendor Fishing’s financial report for the 2000/01 financial year shows that the company’s directors were John Akwenye, Johannes du Preez, Andrew Ndishishi, Juan Perez, and Louis Penzhorn.
Andrew James was the company’s managing director. The former cop says he reported the matter to the police and former minister of fisheries and marine resources Bernhard Esau on four occasions, but the minister was not helpful.
He also reported the matter to Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) director general Paulus Noa, he says. Haulyodjamba says he wrote to the Business Intellectual Property Authority (Bipa) in 2014 to enquire about his shares in the company.
Swapo secretary of economics Alfeus !Naruseb referred The Namibian to the chairperson of Kalahari Holdings, Martin Inkumbi. Inkumbi did not respond to an email sent to him. He earlier asked The Namibian to send him an email so he could confirm that the company is owned by Swapo.
In one of his letters to Esau, Haulyodjamba wrote: “Honourable minister, it is almost a year since I personally handed over a letter to you at the event of the Namibia Fish Consumption Promotion Trust at Ongwediva in 2016.
“I am waiting for feedback . . . at the moment I don’t know to whom I can relay this painful issue. I have no money to hire a lawyer to assist, thus I continue knocking on your door, honourable minister, for help.”
Executive director of fisheries and marine resources Annely Haiphene wrote to Noa in November last year, saying Gendor Holdings Limited, in which the former commissioner had a stake, was not a fishing rights holder.
“However, there is a company called Gendor Fishing (Pty) Ltd which was an orange roughy rights holder. As indicated in our letter of 3 May 2018, orange roughy was placed on moratorium in 2008, and this implies there were no orange roughy fishing activities as from 2008 to date. In addition, the term of fishing rights for Gendor Fishing (Pty) Ltd expired on 31 December 2018,” Haiphene wrote.
Contacted for comment Akwenye, said he cannot remember being involved in a company called Gendor Fishing. “It’s been so long. I cannot remember whether it had received quotas or not. Why didn’t he enquire with Paulus before he went to the newspaper?” he asked.
Ndishishi says he was never involved with the company. “I have never given consent to be a director of any company,” he says, adding his name was probably used as he never owned [shares in] Gendor Fishing.
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